Verb

Adjective

Synonyms

Italian

Verb form

In music, dynamics normally refers to
the volume of a sound or
note, but
also to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either
stylistic (staccato, legato etc.) or functional (velocity). The
term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation
used to indicate dynamics.

Relative loudness

The two basic dynamic indications in
music are:

p or piano, meaning "soft."

f or forte, meaning "loud" or "strong".

More subtle degrees of loudness or softness are
indicated by:

mp, standing for mezzo-piano, and meaning "medium-quiet" or
"moderately-quiet" and

mf, standing for mezzo-forte, and meaning "medium-loud" or
"moderately-loud".

Beyond f and p, there are also

ff, standing for "fortissimo", and meaning "very loud" and

pp, standing for "pianissimo", and meaning "very
quiet".

To indicate even more extreme degrees of
intensity, more ps or fs are added as required. fff and ppp are
found in sheet music
quite frequently. No standard names for fff and ppp exist, but
musicians have invented a variety of neologisms for these
designations, including fortissimissimo/pianissimissimo,
fortississimo/pianississimo, forte fortissimo/piano pianissimo, and
more simply triple forte/triple piano or molto fortissimo/molto
pianissimo (although in Italian
the last expression is not correct). ppp has also been designated
"pianissimo possibile".

Dynamic indications are relative, not absolute.
mp does not indicate an exact level of volume, it merely indicates
that music in a passage so marked should be a little louder than p
and a little quieter than mf. Interpretations of dynamic levels are
left mostly to the performer; in the Barber
Piano Nocturne, a phrase beginning pp is followed by a decrescendo
leading to a mp marking. Another instance of performer's-discretion
in this piece occurs when the left hand is shown to crescendo to a
f, and then immediately after marked p while the right hand plays
the melody f. It has been speculated that this is used simply to
remind the performer to keep the melody louder than the harmonic
line in the left hand. For some music notation programs,
there might be default
MIDI key velocity values associated with these indications, but
more sophisticated programs allow users to change these as
needed.

Sudden changes

Hairpins are usually written below the staff, but
are sometimes found above, especially in music for singers or in music with multiple
melody lines being played by a single performer. They tend to be
used for dynamic changes over a relatively short space of time,
while cresc., decresc. and dim. are generally used for dynamic
changes over a longer period. For long stretches, dashes are used
to extend the words so that it is clear over what time the event
should occur. It is not necessary to draw dynamic marks over more
than a few bars, whereas word directions can remain in force for
pages if necessary.

For more quick changes in dynamics, molto cresc.
and molto dim. are often used, where the molto means a lot.
Similarly, for slow changes poco a poco cresc. and poco a poco dim.
are used, where poco a poco translates as bit by bit.

sotto voce: opposite of marcato, in an undertone (literally
"beneath the voice")

in rilievo: indicates that a particular instrument is to play
slightly louder than the others so as to stand out (be "in relief")
over the ensemble

History

The RenaissancecomposerGiovanni
Gabrieli was one of the first to indicate dynamics in music
notation, but dynamics were used sparingly by composers until
the late 18th
century. Bach used the terms piano, più piano, and pianissimo
(written out as words), and in some cases it may be that ppp was
considered to mean pianissimo in this period.

Different approach

In modern musical interpretation also
other meanings of dynamics are approached. Dynamics can also be
seen and perceived as 'a measure of movement'. The several degrees
of 'loudness' can also be interpreted in a more symbolical way, as
degrees of tension. An example: somebody who whispers can still be
very intense to listen to, and somebody who yells can sound faint.
Also one can imagine that distance is influencing the perceived
dynamics. That's why also the following categories are seen: